Decline of Small-Scale Meat Processors Worries Direct Marketers

Chris Torres
Staff Writer

Frank Stoltzfus remembers the days when he could go to his local butcher to get custom cuts of pork at a reasonable price.

“The smaller they are, it seemed to be the more flexible they would be for the customers and usually the price is a little bit better,” Stoltzfus, a beef producer from Elizabethtown, Pa., said this week.

Over the years, however, Stoltzfus has seen his options slowly fade away. He still gets some of his beef butchered at a local processor. But instead of being able to bring his animals in on short notice, he now has to schedule his butchering months in advance.

That’s because many of the small guys he used to go to are now gone.
It is a trend that is sweeping through Pennsylvania. Even though the state ranks near the top in the number of animal processing facilities available to its producers, it still loses between 4 and 5 percent of its meat processors each year.

Chris Jeffcoat, director of industry relations with the Pennsylvania Beef Council, said it is a troubling trend for producers who want to sell directly to their customers.

“There’s a shortage of processors out there,” Jeffcoat said. “My family, on our (processing) operation, already have producers booking spots for November of this year. As a producer, when you are direct marketing, you want to book your stuff well in advance.”

Anne Pantum, manager of the Pennsylvania Association of Meat Processors, said small processors around the state are facing unique challenges brought on by “big box” retail stores such as Wal-Mart and Giant Foods, where people can purchase meats at cheaper prices.

“The people are busier and busier and the service is not as important as it used to be,” Pantum said.

Small processors, she said, also face expensive labor and regulatory costs.

Last summer, a study done by Dr. William Henning, professor emeritus of dairy and animal science at Penn State, along with Brian Snyder of the Pennsylvania Association for Sustainable Agriculture (PASA), looked into the issues small processors faced.

The study found labor is a “serious impediment for growth” for small companies, which Henning defined as companies with between 11 and 500 employees and sales greater than $2.5 million. (This category does not include very small plants with less than 11 employees.)

Pennsylvania has more than 400 federally inspected plants, with many others doing just custom butchering, which is exempt from federal inspection.

Along with labor, dealing with strict USDA regulations was also an issue the study pointed to, as well as purchasing the equipment to meet USDA specifications.

Becoming USDA certified can open up a lot of opportunities for producers and processors alike. But getting to that point can bring a lot of challenges.

Jay Smucker, owner of Smucker’s Quality Meats in Mount Joy, Pa., knows first hand of those challenges. Thankfully, this 48-year-old processor has his two sons to ease the burden.

“It is much tougher for me now,” he said. “I wouldn’t want to do it if it was just me.”

He used to do just custom butchering for local farmers. But he decided to become USDA inspected so he could have the opportunity to serve more customers and sell products under private labeling.

Still, being inspected hasn’t come without its bumps in the road.

“It is very burdensome,” he said. “Take animal welfare. That is hot button right now. Basically it’s trying to find a balance between the letter of the law and what they (USDA) perceive to be food safety. Sometimes I think they’re more concerned about following the legality of the law than actually practicing food safety.”

Finding any processor is even more difficult for organic producers.

According to Patty Neiner, organic transition specialist with Pennsylvania Certified Organic, there are only six certified organic poultry processors in the state along with two certified beef processors. Producers who are certified organic must take their animals to a certified organic processor in order to sell their products with the organic label on them. So it creates a lot of challenges, especially when most of the processors are located in the central part of the state.

“The beef producers have a great deal of difficulty because the ones in western and eastern Pennsylvania have to drive hours to get it done,” Neiner said.

PASA’s Snyder, who co-authored the study, said keeping small processors is not only a question of giving farmers more choices, it’s also a question of food security.

“You have a tremendous improvement in food security in general if it is processed locally,” Snyder said.

A list of policy considerations was put at the end of the study, including the idea of reinstituting the state inspection program.

Snyder said a state program would be helpful in that it would take the pressure off USDA inspectors and would put the inspection process back in the hands of state officials.

“We think a state inspection program would be more user friendly,” he said. “A state system would have to be as good, but the difference is who is inspecting.”

Mobile slaughter units, which were also mentioned in the study, is another idea Snyder said could be feasible because it could be paid by local farmer cooperatives.

“If we had mobile slaughtering units, it would be lower risk, particularly with farmers involved in cooperatives,” he said. “It would make a lot of sense in terms of the perspective of keeping costs down for farmers. This is an idea whose time has come. It’s very difficult to site processing plants and people don’t want them in their community.”

But the study also pointed out that reinstituting a state inspection program would take time and most importantly, a lot of money. Pennsylvania was one of the first to do away with its meat inspection program after the Wholesome Food Act of 1968 was passed.

Snyder knows of only a few mobile slaughter houses in existence in the entire country.

Stoltzfus considers himself lucky he has a local processor near him. But he also realizes it could be just a matter of time before they to start to close their doors too.

“We had a lot more small guys,” he said. “For a person that has a few head of cattle, it’s hard to find anyone.”

“This is a key issue,” Snyder said. “In fact, in Pennsylvania, we’re very lucky because we have a lot of other alternatives than other states. But even here, we’re starting to see that disappear.”